Feiring Bruk AS - Norway

Background:
With mining experience going back a decade, in 1960, Knut Ollendorff started his own company - Feiring Bruk from a quarry located in Lørenskog just outside Oslo, Norway.  By 1987, Feiring Bruk had expanded its operations to five quarries all located in Akershus, about 30 miles outside of Oslo. The quarry in Lørenskog, now the largest in Norway, was producing up to 1,200 scale tickets on a busy day.  

His sons; Alfred and Trygve had joined the growing business and were in charge of the gravel business. The company relied on mechanical scales and a time consuming process of creating scale tickets.  They were very motivated to modernize their truck scale weighing operations and solve business problems.

Creating and processing scale tickets consisted of several cumbersome steps utilizing outdated mechanical weighing equipment and methods that contributed to overall scale house disorganization. First, a scale operator would select a small, metallic customer identification badge containing the account information from a storage case located on one side of the scale house. At the next station, the badge and a multi-part pre-printed scale ticket would be inserted into a device very similar to the old-style credit card slider sleds used in retail business. Next, the operator would walk to the “in-weigh” scale station to have the weight and dated recorded and then to the “out-weigh” scale station to have additional information stamped onto the imprinted scale ticket. All other information was hand-written. The scale ticket would then be separated, two copies would go to the driver, one copy would be filed in the scale house and the final portion would go to the company accounting department so customer accounts could be updated and an appropriate invoice could be processed.

The processes were slow, inefficient and required too many resources. The sons wanted to increase the number of scale tickets completed per hour, simplify the process and increase scale ticket data accuracy. In addition, the weighing equipment was outdated and due for upgrade or replacement.

Feiring Bruk had an ongoing problem; contractors familiar with scale house operations could take advantage of the slow, manual scale ticket/bookkeeping process by obtaining materials from more than one site and knowingly exceed their credit limit. In some cases the unscrupulous business would declare bankruptcy. Feiring Bruk wanted to establish a common database for all accounts for all sites and have coordination of customer’s credit line.

Solution:

Feiring Bruk AS - Lørenskog

In the fall of 1987 Dag Rasen is introduced to Alfred Ollendorff, CEO of Feiring Bruk. Ollendorff is a progressive businessman with a reputation of buying the highest quality equipment and best available technology for his company. Ollendorff sees the possibilities and is excited about the speed, efficiency and value truck scale software could bring his weighing operations, but was frustrated by other offerings incapable of meeting his demands. He issues a challenge to Dag – using the existing scales and the same scale ticket – complete and print three scale tickets in one minute or less.

After finding a source for the printer to meet the speed requirement and work with the special scale tickets, Landgraff & Flintab Vekter submits a complete solution proposal for an optimized version of their software, new computer work stations, Novell servers, and specifications to rebuild the truck scales. Some weeks later, a preliminary software demonstration and system test was conducted; the system did the job and a handshake sealed the deal.

From the time the agreement was sealed through April 1988 the truck scale software was further optimized to meet Feiring Bruk specific needs.  Ollendorff provided great advice and augmented our own efforts to simplify the use of truck scale software.  In retrospect, we now realize the knowledge gained during this process was critical in our software development and created a foundation for the future success of LFV.

During the Easter holiday in 1988, the truck scales at the Lørenskog quarry were renovated from mechanical to electronic components and the server and 3 computers were installed. One day was dedicated to on-site testing and user training. On the first working day following the holiday, there were many anxious faces to see, the scale house operators were especially skeptical; none of them had ever touched a computer before. The system worked without any major problems from the first day. Some minor bug fixing was done over the next few weeks and the system has performed seamlessly since then.

Over the following 3 months, each of the remaining four quarrying sites had their scales renovated and implemented computers in the scale house running our software. As the project’s final phase, LFV installed communication software to upload all daily customer account activity to the Feiring Bruk main frame computer after business hours. Every morning all sites downloaded updated customer accounts with accurate balances and credit limits. Dial-up modems were used in the early years, later upgraded to ADSL and fixed lines over internet. This communication protocol with minor changes is in use today!

Feiring Bruk continued using our DOS-based truck scale software until 2003. Their company was one of the earliest adopters of Scaleit Windows-based “V2K,” and just recently they began the process of implementing Scaleit W8 enterprise-wide. Feiring Bruk has used LFV as their sole services provider since 1987.

Facts:
Feiring Bruk AS, including subsidiaries owns and operates10 quarries. Additionally, the company is an asphalt producer and sells dirt and other soil. They receive excavated material and perform mobile crushing operations all over Norway. Feiring Bruk is Eastern Norway’s largest producer of crushed stone and gravel.